• Professional
1. Leave my current job.
2. Earn a good living as a freelance editor.
3. Add page layout/desktop publishing to my portfolio and career.

The "professional" category was conspicuously absent from my initial goals for 2007 post. My 2006 goal had been to "earn a serious raise at work," but I had another goal, or rather task, that I knew I had to do during 2006: decide whether I really wanted to continue working there at all. I had taken on the office manager role partly because I really needed the raise it brought, and partly because I wanted to help out more at work. I spent most of the year growing unhappy with work but of course not really thinking about it and more importantly not really doing anything about it. But in November I had a meeting with my manager about the new formalized review process and my goals for the next few months, and that woke me up. I realized that I didn't want to have anything to do with that, and finally admitted to myself that they didn't need a full-time editor and I didn't want to stay anymore or do other work for them.

That realization was the foundation for my claim that this is the Year of Change. After all, there are few things I fear and loathe more in the world than searching for employment, but I knew it had to be done and done soon. Furthermore, I decided that I didn't want to just switch to some other company; if I wanted to be a professional editor, I figured I would have to make that happen myself, as a freelance contractor. These were huge changes for me to contemplate; anyone who's known me for a long time might even say the idea that I'd do it was preposterous. Nevertheless, I'd reached a point where that was clearly my best path, and, oddly, I actually felt good about it, not anxious and full of dread.

So, I started talking to Tony about independent contractor work, and started seriously thinking about when and how to take steps. I also did have feelers out about the possibility of moving to a different company rather than going freelance, and I did let that delay me from taking more direct action at first. However, at the beginning of February the question of my long-term professional goals was raised at work, and that made me decide I had to start moving. I had Tony put me in touch with someone he'd been working with, and I planned to tell work at the beginning of March that I would be leaving at the end of that month.

...and on the last day of February, work told me I was being laid off, effective that day.

Although it was a small shock and caught me off guard, it shouldn't have - it was easily just as clear to them that I was unhappy and that they didn't need a full-time editor as it was to me. And although they thought they were surprising me and were concerned how it would go, I turned it around by saying, "actually, you're trumping me...", and it was a very cordial meeting as we all knew it was the right thing and the right time. Work has been very helpful and generous - I'm not quite sure how discrete I need to be, so I'll just say that it worked out better than if I'd stayed through March and quit as I'd intended. So, professional goal number 1 has been completed successfully.

Furthermore, goal number 2 is under way. One reason I haven't written about all this sooner is that I've been adjusting to my new situation, but another is that I've already been pretty busy with freelance work through that connection of Tony's. So things have been going very well so far. I still need to block out time to do more cleanup work on my resume, and I need to make some other contacts for potential work, but things look okay for the immediate future.

One nice side effect of this change is that I've finally purchased a laptop, a 15" MacBook Pro, because I need a good machine to do freelance work, something that I can also run Windows on (using Parallels, which rocks). I've been talking for a few years now about getting a laptop as my primary computer and using one of my desktop Macs as an entertainment server; unexpectedly, that plan's finally happening. (I still haven't got rid of the TV, VCR and DVD players as I intend to, and rearranged my stuff, but I'll get to it.) I also got a cool laptop bag from Timbuk2, and I realized this is the first general-purpose bag (that is to say, not specifically luggage for traveling) that I've bought for myself since college - my other backpacks and bags were given to me.

Although it might seem like the worst possible time to do this, it's actually exactly the right time. As I said, I do need a good laptop for work purposes - I need to be able to go to client sites, for example - and because I was able to start doing freelance work right away, I'm not in a serious financial hole. I do still have a fair amount of that credit card debt that I've periodically complained about, but another effect of leaving work is that I'll have my 401(k) funds to deal with. I have enough there that I can withdraw some to clear up the remaining debt, including covering the new laptop - and yes, I know there's a withdrawal penalty and taxes - and still roll the larger portion over into my IRA. I'm also pretty confident that I'll be able to get steady contract work; provided that goes well, I should have a decent net increase in my net income.

Finally, about that third goal: when I was still living back East, I was a violinist in the Nashua Chamber Orchestra, and I also produced their program books from 1995 to 2002. I really enjoyed doing the layout and production of the books, and I haven't done anything like that since the last one that I did for them in 2002 after moving here. When I talked with John last November, after realizing that I couldn't stay at work much longer, he asked me what it was that I wanted to do, and without hesitation I said "editing and layout." I'd really like to do layout/design/production work again, though I'm not sure how to get into it. Freelance editing is easy, as I have several years now of professional experience to show for that, but all my layout experience is in that one set of program books, done voluntarily; plus I'm entirely self-taught and haven't done any such work in five years. That's why one of my "mental" goals for 2007 is to take a course in graphic design and layout. It probably won't happen until the fall, because I'm busy right now getting the other pieces of my life shuffled around, but I'll have to plan for it and make it happen. In the meantime, if I do find opportunities to jump into that kind of work, I won't pass them up.

So there it is: 2007, the Year of Change. And boy, things are changing. Who knows, maybe I'll even go out on a date after all...

Oh let's see, it must be time to talk about money again. I haven't talked about that since April. You'd think that being on a restricted diet, bringing a can of soup to work for lunch every day (about $8 a week, instead of the $35-ish I was spending buying sandwiches), and not going out for dinner, that I'd have saved money this month. Naturally, that's not so.

I did get a bill from the anesthesiologist for $200, the remainder not covered by insurance, so that's probably the main factor. I haven't yet seen any other surgery-related bills, but I would imagine that'll come up pretty soon, and I'll have to work out some kind of payment plan with the surgeon.

I've also resumed my vain effort to reduce my credit card debt, sending both cards $100 + the finance charge (currently about $40 each). It's a vain effort because inevitably something comes up that I have to put on one of the cards, and that something is expensive enough to negate my payment if not increase the balance by a hundred or two. This month that'll be the brake and clutch fluid replacement that my car's due for.

This would not seem to be a good time to see the optometrist and get new glasses, but I did indeed make an appointment for that for tomorrow afternoon. I've really been putting it off far too long - in fact, having looked in my old checking register (which, yes, I still have), my last appointment was in September 2000. Importantly, I do have vision insurance through work, and it's a good plan (so far as I can tell, not having compared it to others). My current glasses (lenses and frames) cost me $470 (!!) back in 2000, but then I didn't have any insurance coverage. This time, I'm hoping to pay much much less.

Once again, I whine about money problems, and then come up with something that shows how fortunate I actually am. It is my journal, these are actual real concerns for me, and my finances are more precarious than I want them, but still I now feel slightly embarrassed writing about them. Rightfully, no one wants to read about the troubles of the affluent; while I feel my grasp of that status is tenuous (and certainly my status is low on the American scale of affluence), it is still my status.

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In other news, John finished writing his latest game, Agon, this week, and I edited it, as well as contributing a tiny bit of writing, an idea or two, and helping with playtests. I'm pretty excited about it, it's a very cool game about ancient Greek heroes competing to win eternal glory. It's debuting at GenCon in a couple weeks and will be available for purchase online starting August 20. Check it out.

Back over a year ago - wow, I didn't realize it had been that long - I wrote about my job history and my desire to work as an editor. The post was spurred by an article from USA Today, which Alkelda had sent me, that declared, "blue-pencil editing is becoming a lost art."

Earlier this week, I found a link on The Morning News to an article in UK paper The Guardian that also declares, "editors are now an endangered species."

Unfortunately, I don't really have time right now to write out some thoughts about this article and what it's saying, but it's worth a read. And I need to post now because I won't have another chance to get my post for the week done - my younger sister and her girlfriend are here for a visit, and tomorrow we're celebrating my sister's birthday.

TonyD has written a story about me as the "god of blue-pencil editing, daimon of grammar." It's cute, and flattering.

I have to admit, though, that I cannot decline arche, because I studied Latin, not ancient Greek.

My friend Orkgrrrl found this article in USA Today, "Good blue-pencil editing becomes a lost art."

When I finished college 11 years ago, I didn't really know what I wanted to do next. I was tired of school and knew I didn't want to go on to graduate school immediately; in fact, I couldn't think of a reason to go, a subject I wanted to pursue that far.

So, I floundered. I spent another two and a half years working in a supermarket deli, and much less than half-heartedly sending out resumes in response to whatever ads I could scrounge up in the papers that somehow related to editing or writing and required my (entry-)level of ability. I finally left the deli to work as a long-term data-entry temp for the Postal Service, spending three years in that job (overlapping with the last half-year at the deli). I also sent out resumes more often, thanks in part to some pressure from my martial arts instructor (I started training right after leaving the deli).

I had a (very) few interviews as a result of my want-ad search. None of them called me back. I'd believed for a long time that that was a stupid and worthless time-wasting method to find a job. Nevertheless, it was a couple years before I realized that what I needed to do was leave the Postal Service and other unskilled jobs entirely, and sign up with temp agencies. If I could get temp assignments I'd at least be getting "real" office experience that businesses would recognize, even though I knew that I already had the necessary editorial skills. I contacted four or five agencies which claimed to need and use people with writing and editing skills. None of those agencies ever responded to me.

The agency that did respond to me did not, it turned out, place people with writing and editing skills as such - they were geared toward people with clerical, financial, and administrative assistant skills. Still, they could offer me assignments, I needed money, and I needed some kind of practical office experience to add to my resume. So I worked for them, and within nine months found myself hired as a full employee of a consulting group, as a result of my skills and competence beyond that of a regular temp. It worked!

Well, sort of. It was a good job, working for and with good people, and I enjoyed it. But as time went on it developed that they really couldn't use my prime skills - writing and editing - that often, that there wasn't really a place for me to advance within their structure. We agreed that I should look for a new employer. Fortunately for me, they were gracious enough to keep me with them while I conducted my search. Unfortunately, this occurred in early 2001, and the economy had already turned. I tried contacting yet another "creative professionals" agency, and although I did get to talk to them, they didn't have anything to offer me right away and then stopped responding to me.

After another year, in which I mostly floundered and failed to do much about finding a new position, I was handed one on the proverbial silver platter. A couple of my college friends worked for a Microsoft consulting company, which needed someone who knew how to write. One of those friends was in a position to get an offer to me. And so I moved to Seattle.

Although I'm no longer with the company that brought me out here, I'm still working in the same field, and now more than ever I'm using my thorough understanding of English and my editorial skills on a daily basis. Perversely, I sometimes complain a lot about some of the basic corrections I have to make over and over, but I really do enjoy my work.

For a long time I thought that what I really wanted was to get into the publishing field, in books or periodicals (but not newspapers). I still think that I would enjoy that, as long as my role actually was to be an editor: to work with text, to transform raw thoughts into carefully crafted phrases and sentences and paragraphs. The author of the editorial I linked to, however, comments,

"It makes me sad that the economics of modern publishing makes editors relics. The greatest, Gottlieb or Simon & Schuster's Alice Mayhew, have been in the business more than 30 years. A young editor today rises with skills in lunching and procuring. The dessert spoon and lobster fork are now mightier than the knife and the blue pencil."

I utterly loathe and fear the job-hunt process, and consequently I am not good at it. I did not have any contacts in the publishing field when I got out of college, nor did I put much effort into my job search until a few years later. When I finally started trying to get temp jobs in the field, I was five years out of school with no practical experience to show for myself. I believe it's clear that I bear the burden of responsibility for my failure to enter the publishing field.

This article however makes me wonder what role the changing times played, and whether I am better off, perhaps, for not finding a way in to professional publishing. I may regret my lack of ambition and drive. I might've spared myself years of unhappy floundering. Nonetheless, I do not regret being where I am now; aside from my love of Seattle and from the good friends I've made here, I'm also glad to have found a place where I can be myself, the editor.

I feel I should note that this post did not end up where I thought it was going to go. I thought I was going to write more about being an editor and what that means to me. Instead I've somehow come to yet another almost-sappy paean to how much I love being here. Urgh. Well, it's way way too late for me to still be up writing this, so it'll have to stand.

Bonus fun fact: LiveJournal's spellchecker doesn't recognize contractions!